UPDATE Thursday, Oct. 9, 12:10 p.m.: Police have identified the suspect as Everrett Semone, 21, of Shageluk, and confirmed the victims as Flossie Semone, 46, and John Arrow, 57.
Original story:
A young man suspected in the killings of his parents Tuesday evening in a small, remote Western Alaska village was held by community members until Alaska State Troopers arrived Wednesday morning, according to the Shageluk city government and the Shageluk tribe.
The village of Shageluk has no law enforcement and no health aide, though the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. has been looking for one.
Instead, village leaders responded to the trouble in the couple's home, tried to provide emergency medical care, then tied up and held the suspect in the Shageluk community building, said Joyanne Hamilton, principal teacher at Innoko River School in the village.
Alaska State Troopers have not named the couple or the suspect or described what happened beyond two sudden deaths. The investigation is just beginning, Public Safety Commissioner Gary Folger said Wednesday afternoon.
He confirmed that tribal leaders secured the scene until troopers arrived. Folger, who is Athabascan, was attending the Association of Village Council Presidents annual conference in Bethel.
Hamilton, a longtime resident of Shageluk whose husband is a tribal member, identified the couple killed as Flossie Semone and John Arrow. They were beloved in the village, lived in traditional, subsistence ways and taught others too, said their friends. Semone was a former community health aide. Arrow had been mayor.
"They are wonderful subsistence hunters and fisher people and loved berry picking and making things," Hamilton said.
Hamilton said the family gave her permission to release the couple's names but that she couldn't provide their son's name. She said he had just turned 21 and that he was well-loved too. But the family had been concerned about him.
Community leaders recently contacted troopers and others seeking mental health care for the young man because of concerns he was a danger to himself or others, Hamilton said.
"We were unable to get help for him this past month," she said. "And it resulted in this."
Late Wednesday afternoon, troopers weren't able to address what, if anything, had been requested of the agency before the deaths. Megan Peters, troopers spokeswoman, said she would look into the assertion.
At 9:17 p.m. Tuesday, troopers were alerted that two people had been injured in Shageluk, according to an online posting.
Word spread fast through the village that something bad had happened and everyone needed to go on lockdown, Hamilton said. Community gym time had just ended and children were heading home.
Tribal chief Roger Hamilton Jr. and community leader Chevie Roach tried to keep one of the victims alive and, when the person slipped away, joined others to corral the suspect, she said. The whole community came together.
"There were a lot of volunteers last night, helping calm the family members, helping mind the little grandchildren," Hamilton said Wednesday afternoon.
Tuesday night the Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. arranged for a medevac flight through LifeMed Alaska out of Bethel. Two Bethel-based troopers were on the flight, Peters said. But at 10:26 p.m., before the plane took off, troopers learned both people had died. The regional health corporation then canceled the flight.
That left troopers scrambling to get to Shageluk, Peters said. Two troopers based in Aniak, the post that serves Shageluk and nearby villages, took a chartered flight Wednesday morning and arrived there about 10 a.m., Peters said. Village leaders said troopers arrived later than that.
"The community of Shageluk is extremely outraged by the lack of medical attention and emergency response by the Alaska State Troopers," the Shageluk tribe and city government said in a written statement Wednesday morning. "After repeated attempts to seek law enforcement assistance to locate and apprehend, as well as provide medical care, Troopers and medical officials have not arrived in Shageluk (as of 10:30 a.m.)."
Troopers also sent an investigation team from Anchorage, which arrived late in the afternoon, Hamilton said.
The last village public safety officer assigned to the village appears to have left in November 2002, Peters said.
The village falls within the Tanana Chiefs Conference region, and Shageluk would need to work with that nonprofit to get an officer assigned, Peters said. Efforts to reach Tanana Chiefs for comment Wednesday were not successful.
Dan Winkelman, president and chief executive of Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp., said he too is pushing for answers.
"I am looking further into how and why a faster response by the state troopers was not executed at the level the community had hoped or expected and have already contacted Commissioner of Public Safety Gary Folger," Winkelman, a Shageluk tribal member, said in a written statement.
Two mental health clinicians from Bethel headed to the village on a chartered flight midday Wednesday, Winkelman said in an interview.
"We're sending a crisis team," he said. Team members will be based in the village for weeks to offer counseling, including grief services, Winkelman said.
He said he was fielding calls from Shageluk, Holy Cross and Grayling about the deaths and YKHC's response.
Winkelman's mother is from the village and the people killed are his relatives, he said. He saw them just last week during a health corporation trip to the lower Yukon River area. He spent the afternoon with them.
"Everything was fine," he said.
The village has been without a health aide for a long time, Winkelman said.
It's a stressful, challenging job and a tough one to fill, especially so in small villages like Shageluk where the health aide knows everyone, he said. It's also the backbone of health care in remote villages.
On the recent Yukon-area trip, Bill Schreiner, who oversees village operations for YKHC, asked the village for help in recruiting and training a community health aide.
Hamilton said she knew of people who had applied.
The mainly Athabascan community had a population of 83 people as of the 2010 U.S. Census. It is on the east bank of the Innoko River, a tributary of the Yukon, about an hour and a half by small plane from Bethel.
Semone loved to bead, and taught her children. She had worked as a cook at the school and at the time of her death worked at the village store, Hamilton said.
She had a giving nature, said Sandra Lamm, who grew up with Semone in the village, two girls being raised by their grandmothers. Then Lamm and Semone became grandmothers together, doting on two boys born to Lamm's son and Semone's daughter.
Men in the family had just been moose hunting and Semone posted on Facebook about putting up the meat.
"And last batch of dried moose meat done this am," an Oct. 2 post in quick-written Facebook style says. "Totes almost all cleaned just a few more things to clean and put away."
People still remember the care she gave as a health aide.
"If something happened to someone in the village, she'd be right there for them, night or day," Lamm said.
Lisa Demer reported from Bethel and Laurel Andrews from Anchorage. Reporter Jerzy Shedlock also contributed to this article.